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The purpose of this paper is to compare two corruption scandals in Singapore to illustrate how its government has dealt with these scandals and to discuss the implications for its anti-corruption strategy.

This paper analyses the Teh Cheang Wan and Edwin Yeo scandals by relying on published official and press reports.

Both scandals resulted in adverse consequences for the offenders. Teh committed suicide on 14 December 1986 before he could be prosecuted for his bribery offences. Yeo was found guilty of criminal breach of trust and forgery and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. The Commission of Inquiry found that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) was thorough in its investigations which confirmed that only Teh and no other minister or public official were implicated in the bribery offences. The Independent Review Panel appointed by the Prime Minister's Office to review the CPIB's internal controls following Yeo's offences recommended improvements to strengthen the CPIB's financial procedures and audit system. Singapore has succeeded in minimising corruption because its government did not cover-up the scandals but punished the guilty offenders and introduced measures to prevent their recurrence.

This paper will be useful for scholars, policymakers and anti-corruption practitioners interested in Singapore's anti-corruption strategy and how its government handles corruption scandals.

This paper analyses the role of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister from June 1959 to November 1990, in minimising corruption by implementing a zero-tolerance policy toward corruption in Singapore.

This paper is based on the analysis of Lee’s beliefs and the policies he introduced to curb corruption in Singapore.

Lee’s disdain for corruption and his beliefs in meritocracy and the importance of good leadership shaped his commitment to a zero-tolerance policy against corruption, which was enforced impartially and sustained in Singapore for the past 62 years.

This analysis of how Lee transformed Singapore into one of the least corrupt countries in the world would be of interest to policy-makers, practitioners and scholars concerned with minimising corruption in their own countries.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the five mistakes made by political leaders in Asian countries in combating corruption. These mistakes constitute the cycle of failure which must be broken for Asian countries to succeed in fighting corruption.

This paper is based on the comparative evaluation of the effectiveness of the anti-corruption measures adopted by various Asian countries.

The cycle of failure in combating corruption in Asian countries arises from their governments’ reliance on corrupt political leaders and the police, and multiple anti-corruption agencies as attack dogs or paper tigers.

This paper would be of interest to those policymakers, anti-corruption practitioners, and scholars, who are concerned with enhancing the effectiveness of anti-corruption strategies in their countries by breaking the cycle of failure.

This paper analyses the importance of leadership and culture in combating corruption in Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan.

This paper is based on the comparative analysis of the effectiveness of the anti-corruption measures in the studies of six selected countries/regions in this special issue of Public Administration and Policy. The contributors in this special issue were invited because of their publications on combating corruption in the six countries/regions.

The critical variable ensuring the effectiveness of combating corruption is the strong political will of the leadership in changing the culture of corruption in the country/region by implementing a zero-tolerance policy toward corruption, as shown in Singapore and Hong Kong. In New Zealand’s case, leadership plays a less important role because of the population’s emphasis on equality and egalitarianism and its reliance on the Ombudsman and Serious Fraud Office to curb corruption. However, the corrupt leadership of Tanaka Kakuei in Japan, Najib Rajak in Malaysia, and Chen Shui-bian in Taiwan, demonstrates clearly their insidious impact of consolidating their kleptocratic rule in these countries/regions.

As the role of leadership and culture in combating corruption has not been given sufficient attention in the literature, this paper attempts to rectify this neglect by demonstrating that the political leaders in Singapore and Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent, New Zealand, have succeeded in minimising corruption while their counterparts in Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia, have failed to do so.

To show that establishing an anti-corruption agency (ACA), by itself, is not likely to be a successful anti-corruption strategy. Instead, a solid base of social trust, participation, and support is just as essential as creating an ACA with significant powers and resources.

This is a historical review of the origins and development of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong, and an assessment of its three-pronged approach strategy at both strategic and tactical levels.

An ACA requires broad and deep social support and participation if it is to succeed. That the ICAC remains nearly unique in developing such a base of support provides important lessons for those countries with ineffective ACAs.

A reassessment of the ICAC after a half-century shows that the Hong Kong case, despite its familiarity, has much to teach us if we understand it in its broadest implications.

The purpose of this paper is to explain why Singapore is a success story today despite the fact that its prospects for survival were dim when it became independent in August 1965.

This paper describes the changes in Singapore’s policy context from 1959 to 2016, analyses the five factors responsible for its success and concludes with advice for policy makers interested in implementing Singapore-style reforms to solve similar problems in their countries.

Singapore’s success can be attributed to these five factors: the pragmatic leadership of the late Lee Kuan Yew and his successors; an effective public bureaucracy; effective control of corruption; reliance on the “best and brightest” citizens through investment in education and competitive compensation; and learning from other countries.

This paper will be useful to those scholars and policy makers interested in learning from Singapore’s success in solving its problems.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and evaluate how the governments in six Asian countries have dealt with selected grand corruption scandals.

This paper is based on the comparative analysis of 11 corruption scandals examined in the six articles on India, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore included in this special issue of Public Administration and Policy.

The responses of the governments in the six countries depend on the strength of their political will in combating corruption. The responses of the governments in Malaysia, Philippines, India and Japan reflect their weak political will in combating corruption and lack of accountability of the corrupt offenders. By contrast, the strong political will of the governments in Singapore and Macau is reflected in the investigation and punishment of the corrupt offenders without any cover-up of the scandals.

The findings would be of interest to scholars, policymakers and anti-corruption practitioners and activists.